A Skillful Balancing Act by Symphony

Fluctuation of character and weight seemed most on JoAnn Falletta’s mind Saturday at the Terrace Theater. She and her Long Beach Symphony, with piano soloist Misha Dichter, tackled music where little sounds often live in big spaces, the intimate detail within the grandiose gesture.

Certainly that seemed to be the case with Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2. Reflection seems to be the rule of the day in reconsidering this familiar merging of concerto dynamism and symphonic form, but seldom is it accomplished with such poise. Dichter could sound brittle when forced into heroism, but he proved warm and gracious given the chance to sing and dance rather than shout.

Falletta and her responsive orchestra handled the more urgent impulses incisively, with a meltingly lyrical Andante solo from principal cellist John Walz and a noble French horn introduction from Calvin Smith.

Falletta has culled a musically and dramatically satisfying group of her own from the three suites Prokofiev made of music from his “Cinderella” ballet. Her orchestra sounded dark and luxuriant in the heroine’s waltz, but this too is music of shifting dimensions, down to the gavotte for violin duet, played with savvy sass by concertmaster Vahn Armstrong and Chyi-Yau Chen-Lee.

The program also boasted the U.S. premiere of “Celebration” by Byong-kon Kim, a veteran Korean-American composer who teaches at Cal State L.A. Though originally the third movement of a symphony written in 1984 to dedicate the opening of the Olympic Stadium in Seoul, it makes a colorful and lively independent piece, with a large percussion battery functioning virtually as an orchestra-within-an-orchestra.